So here’s how this works, and you can probably relate… I get these brilliant ideas for a story, or a story idea — even a tidbit of juiciness–sparks of creativity—glimpses of genius—and I race to capture them. Before they race away into the vast recesses of my grey matter.
So I have probably oh, I don’t know, 27 posts ‘pending’. 27 drafts. Works in ‘progress’.
This might bother a sane mind.
It would bother my insane mind if IDIDN’T have a bunch of inspiration to work with. Cuz, Baby, you gotta strike while the iron is hot, the sparks are flying, guns are blazin’…. and ya gotta fit it in somewhere between the phone calls, the emails, the kids throwing toys across the room, and pouring yourself another glass a wine.
One of those juicy tidbits of mine was called, “Unfinished.”
Here’s all it said:
so many things in life started
not finished
following through items complete
I started it March 31st. Just 3 phrases. And it was – unfinished. My brilliant mind would only need to see those phrases and know the grand idea.
Just like some of my other masterpieces-in-waiting right now: “The Problem With Drunk Priests”, “Kool-Aid House”, “GPS For Your Soul”, “Where’s Your Penis?”, “Margaritas & Handcuffs.” In fact, “Brain Drain Cabernet. Comfort Me With Cabernet.” started the same way!
See, when you’re a recovering Type-A, you come to realize that in Life, under the heading of ‘Unfinished’ — there is a MASSIVE database filled with various types of ‘unfinished’. Complete with an organizational chart with sub-headings, and categories, and branches of sub-topics, and a whole slew of sub-sets within each of them.
And the original idea of ‘Unfinished’ was one of the bigger branches of the chart. More profound. Intense. Serious. Life-changing. Life-MOLDING. And deliriously salacious. I was referring more to goals in my life or promises made and not kept – either to others or to myself. (Those to myself usually being the most punishing.)
It wasn’t from the sub-heading of ‘daily unfinished stuff.’ Like bills to pay, laundry to finish, homework to do, desserts to drop off at school carnival, cooler and snacks for baseball, and emails to return. Like the email I just found today that I started yesterday to the great designers of my websites about some to-do items. And yes, it too was incomplete. Just a-sittin’ there, waiting for the rest of its words. And I thought to myself, ‘ha ha, there’s a blog post in here somewhere’ — when, yep, I remembered I already started it and it too, was _________.
Unfinished.
So, I thought, hmmm…. maybe I could finish unfinished.
But there’s beauty in knowing it has yet to unfold itself. So much yet to come. Such excitement in the not knowing. So much yet to discover.
Just like our lives. So much yet to reveal and to discover. Because, as humans, WE are UNFINISHED. ON PURPOSE.
God made us beautifully designed to continue. And grow. And explore. There’s beauty in knowing that. Beauty and wisdom and freedom and inspiration in knowing that. And that’s so EMPOWERING! God is never done with us, He is never finished with us. Why then, should we ever think we’re finished with ourselves?
Each day is new, each day a new opportunity for us to learn, to grow, to discover, to achieve, to take on new goals and dreams and aspirations… some we’ll finish and some that will remain unfinished. Finished means done, over, complete. While that’s fine for a task, it’s not okay for our souls – because when we are FINISHED growing, we are dead.
And as the saying goes, ‘God-willing-and-the-creek-don’t-rise’, I’m never gonna be finished. With so many things. And I won’t care. I hope I’m never finished. Many I won’t finish and they will keep bugging me – if I LET THEM. So I will let go of them. Because I am only imprisoning myself by those burdens. No one else is hurt. Just me. And what’s the point of that?
And you shouldn’t let your ‘Unfinished’ shackle you, let it serve to fuel you for more unfinished stuff!
Because sometimes UNFINISHED is the point. Consider yourself UNFINISHED.
UNFINISHED on PURPOSE.